So I made it to the big Three-Hundred. For me it is not a surprise. It is more of an inevitability: if you keep stacking up daily posts, eventually you get to three-hundred of them. Yet it is still is very cool. It is further confirmation that this project has really suited me. But I had hunch that this would be the case back on Day 1.
As I have written before, these days I know how crucial it is to do things that align with who you are. If you don’t, if you allow yourself to take on things that don’t truly resonate with you–because someone else says you should, for example–then you defy your own nature and desires. This is not a good idea! Moreover, if you do go against your own desires, you are less likely to succeed at whatever you are aiming at, less likely to feel good about it, and if you manage to get to Day 300 of it, you are likely to feel burnt out, confused, and discouraged.
I know. I have been there, and then some.
Yesterday I finished up “it’s always the husband” by Michele Campbell, after picking it up on Monday impulsively at a Barnes and Noble. I very much enjoyed this read (I do love having a good read). Near the end, there is a reference to a line from the Tao Te Ching:
Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises on its own?
In the story, the character reading this line is up to no good, plotting a way to get back at her former college roommate, who is having an affair with her husband twenty years later. However, I see the wisdom in this question.
So often we feel like we should go out and do stuff! I have been there many time. When I graduated high school, I definitely felt the pressure to go directly to college. I learned the hard way the results of my premature action: I ended up dropping out of the first school I went to and taking a year off before going back to school. I did not know what a “gap year” was at the time. Turns out I ended up taking one anyway.
And so it is for me with this 365 Day Blogging Project. I’m not doing it because I feel “I should,” or because I am bored and need something to do. I’m doing it because it fits. It is the right action for me. It is the right action at the right time. That’s why I started this project back in August of last year. It hit me as an idea I was ready for… and off I went!
Incidentally, I had started the blog almost two and a half years prior to that, and I had not updated it regularly for most of that time! So, while the idea of doing a 365 Day Blogging Project seemed easy and logical enough once it hit me, it actually took several years of preparing the soil before I was ready for the action.
I am learning to let my entire life be that way. I am learning not to force things.
As a result, I take the right action for me, and am not surprised when, three hundred days later, I’m still going strong 🙂